Two porch pirates hit same Berkley home within 20 minutes of each other

BERKLEY, Mich. (FOX 2) - Two package thefts took place at the same house roughly 20 minutes apart, with both crimes being captured on Amy Birmingham’s Ring doorbell camera.

"This is him running up, and there he goes getting in his car," she said. "The dog was in the window barking."

Birmingham was on a shopping trip with a neighbor on Wednesday when she got the alert. She says the first porch pirate struck just after 2 p.m. He stole a package of electronics from Verizon.

Then, around 2:30 p.m., a different thief took the second delivery, leaving Birmingham feeling angry and shocked.

"We’ve noticed a trend of that. That they’re actually following, specifically this year, following the delivery trucks or post office," said Lt. Andrew Hadfield with Berkley Police.

A report from Security.org says, nationally, porch pirates stole more than $8 billion in merchandise in 2023. Every year, Hadfield says there’s a noticeable uptick in package thefts between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

"In Berkley, there’s been five in the past week," he said.

On Wednesday evening, officers arrested a suspected thief from the weekend.

"The subject was not from Berkley," he said. "He’s coming in from outside the community. There was actually an off-duty detective from another agency that was aware, looking for the vehicle. Happened to spot him, followed him until we got in position and stopped him."

That is progress. But police are still looking for the grinches who stole from Amy Birmingham. In the meantime, police say you should consider having packages delivered to a work address, a trusted family or friend whose home, or pick them up at the store.

"The delivery driver could be changing the required signature portion of it because the electronics were supposed to have signatures required for delivery, and they did not," said Birmingham. "It makes me definitely think twice about what we order, and if we should have them delivered to our house."